The Chinese take couterfeiting to a new level...



Electronics market in Shenzhen

 Counterfeit products are everywhere in China.  Last year several bogus "Apple Stores" were discovered.  I wrote a few weeks ago about counterfeit taxis.  The list of fake products you can buy for a substantial discount seems endless, and occasionally the Chinese government makes an attempt to do something about this.  Here is my favorite news story from my most recent visit to Shenzhen:

It seems that bogus Apple products, iPads, iPhones and the like have been making their way from mainland China to Hong Kong, and catching shipments of these products at the border has become a priority for governments on both sides.  Recently, one such shipment was discovered near a border crossing between Shenzhen and Hong Kong, the goods seized and arrests made...but this did not go down the way you might think.   As it turns out, the smugglers, who were in reality undercover police arrested the police, who were not policemen at all but theives disguised as cops trying to steal the counterfeit merchandise to sell for themselves.  Fake smugglers of fake goods arresting fake cops!  You gotta love this place...

Get your moon cakes while they last...

The Mid-Autumn Festival is approaching in China and everyone is selling Moon Cakes...even Dunkin Donuts!



From the Dunkin Donuts in Shekou


Saw them at Starbucks too.  If you are not familiar with these, they are small cakes with a "surprise" inside.  The "surprise" is a filling of some sort.  Maybe some fruit, perhaps an egg, maybe some fish, or who knows what else.  Kind of like Cracker Jack, only stranger.

Gangnam Style!




View from the Novotel in Gangnam



After spending a week in Chinese cities, I really appreciate Seoul.  This city is huge.  At 20.5 million people, it is the second largest city by population in the world behind Tokyo.  But despite its size, it bears little resemblence to places like Shanghai.  For one thing, and I noticed this immediately,  Seoul is much cleaner.  Shanghai seems to be perpetually covered in dust, there are little piles of rubble everywhere you look, and the grime makes even new buildings look shabby and poorly maintained.  Also unlike Shanghai, Seoul traffic actually flows, drivers seem to actually obey things like stop lights and lane markers.  Driving here does not resemble a blood sport.

I am staying in the Gangnam neighborhood, probably best known to Americans (at least those under the age of twenty) from this video - a humorous dance and song making fun of the rich people in this part of Seoul.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0

I was only in Korea for two days, but had a very enjoyable time.  My Korean colleagues took me out for a traditional Korean dinner; shoes off,  sitting on the floor,  and maybe a dozen different dishes - all of which were quite good and nothing too strange.  The best was something that required assembly - a sesame leaf onto which you place a piece of roast pork and some kimchee, You are supposed to roll it up and eat in one bite - using only your chop sticks, including the rolling part.  I apparently have a lot to learn about mastering the use of these - the Koreans made it look easy - mine looked like it had been run over by team of horses.

After dinner they took me to a Karaoke bar.  Yes, I sang....sort of.   Two pieces of advice here.  If you can't sing worth a damn - like me - you can still sound good on a Bob Dylan song because after all, Bob can't really sing either.  I think I rocked on "Like a Rolling Stone".  The second piece of advice; Freddy Mercury had a great voice so I appologize now to the surviving members of Queen for what I did to "We Are the Champions".  I never really liked that song anyway...

By the way, every toilet I have seen in Korea has a control panel.  Just study the buttons on the photo below.  All I will say is....  well, lets just say this is interesting and leave it at that.



Mission Control!



Riding China's High Speed Rail



Our train pulling into Wuxi East Station

 Larry, my Chinese colleage and I flew Wednesday from Shenzhen to Wuxi, and had to be in Shanghai that same night.  Larry had no car to use for the 2-hour drive to Shanghai - this is a blessing as two hours of Larry's driving is agony for me.  Instead, we rode one of China's new high-speed rail lines.  China has built the worlds largest high-speed rail system over the last decade, linking all of its major cities. 

Unlike American passenger rail service, the Chinese system uses dedicated tracks, not sharing the road with freight traffic and apart from one well publicized and tragic accident last year, the system appears to work well.

This was my first time on a train like this one, and I am quite impressed.  The train arrived exactly on time at the Wuxi East Railway Station, built specifically for this train line.  We also departed on time and arrived at the Hongqiao rail station (pronounced "hong chow") in Shanghai in only 29 minutes.  Even counting the taxi ride from Hongqiao to the hotel, the entire trip was only 1 hour - half the time it would take to drive given typically horrendous Shanghai traffic and equally horrific driving by Larry.  According to the display in our coach, we reached a top speed of 300 km per hour, that's 186 mph!  From the inside, the ride was smooth and quiet.  If you did not look out the window, you would have no indication you were traveling at such velocity.  Check out the video I took with my phone at the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFuVbLrdzwc

The best part, no security line, no removing my liquids, laptop or shoes, and the fare was 50RMB, a whopping $8.00.  Including the cab ride, I traveled from Wuxi to my hotel for under $17.00 - far less than it would cost to drive.

A word of advice... Don't eat this!

One hopefully learns a few lessons when traveling abroad.  Sometimes we learn simply by being exposed to things that are new to us - kind of an osmosis process.  Other times we go searching for new experiences.  And other times...we learn by doing things that are really stupid!  Sadly, some days I seem to go the latter route.  So, as a public service, the following is something you should avoid doing:

No matter how late it is...

Regardless of how long it has been since dinner...

...or how hungry you feel...

...or how many adult beverages you have consumed at your favorite Shenzhen bar...

...or how much face you think you will lose with the cute bartender who offered it to you...

Do Not.....I repeat, Do Not eat one of the dozen or so spicy duck feet just brought into the bar from a nearby street vendor!!

It's not that it tastes bad.  It doesn't. 

It's not that it's too spicy.  It isn't - not for me anyhow. 

It's just this; if you want to avoid knowing for the next couple of days what it would feel like to chug a bottle of Liquid Plumber, just say no.



Not the actual foot I ate, but you get the picture...

 I mean "Holy sh...." - well, you get the gist of it - no need for detail

Travelers are often warned to avoid street food, which is kind of a shame as in my opinion this is some of the best tasting stuff there is - but should you venture a try, be warned - your food may bite back!

I am feeling better now...three days later...